Sunday, February 17, 2013

The First Tear Shed

Aside from the tearful goodbye at the airport, South Africa
has been nothing but growing and laughing.
In the past couple days, KHouse has basically been on cloud nine with
our emotions: Valentine’s Day, meeting Judy, hiking Table Mountain, Mzoli’s,
our first family dinner, and KIM. Though
I already explained Valentine’s Day, I should probably fill you in on the rest.

Judith Mayotte is the founder of the Marquette South Africa
Service Learning Program. She just
happened to be visiting Cape Town this semester so we were so incredibly
blessed to meet this wonderful woman.
She is quite possibly the most amazing woman I will ever meet in my life
(sorry mom, you’re a VERY close second.
I promise). Though I cannot even
begin to describe the things she has done, I can try to tell a little about
what she told. She is extremely humble,
to the point where losing her leg in southern Sudan during the war was just a
minor point in her stories. Through
attending a Catholic high school and ultimately converting to Catholicism, she
became a nun. After ten years of this
life, she decided during Vatican II that it wouldn’t be right for her after the
changes were implemented. She left the
convent, but not the faith. She attended
Marquette University for her PHD and found the love of her life. They married and three years later he died
from cancer. It was then that she found
her passion in helping refugees. She
traveled to every war zone during these years, lived with the refugees, and
ultimately was forced to retire this lifestyle due to the loss of her leg in
the Sudan war. While trying to airlift
food into these refugees, a 200-pound bag of grain dropping at about 120mph
fell on her leg. She came back to
Seattle where she was teaching and asked to be on a board with Desmond
Tutu. In the midst of this, Marquette
had also asked her to be “a chair of some sort within the University.” (She can’t even remember the titles she
held!!) When Marquette asked her to make
a service learning abroad program, she was sure to make it in Cape Town because
this is the place she knew the most people who would help her. She had such a deep love for South Africa
because during the apartheid, instead of choosing war, this country chose
reconciliation. Judy could have been
stuck in another war zone, but because of the choice for reconciliation she
wasn’t. She truly has a deep love for
every South African because of it. She
has nothing but kind words to say about these amazing people.

Judy began the program with 3 days of classes at UWC and 2
days of service at various sites. She
and a few students exclusively from Marquette lived in the same house (KHouse)
we live in now. She chose UWC instead of
UCT because of UWC’s involvement in the apartheid. UWC was made during the apartheid era for
blacks and colored students. Though it
has changed since the apartheid ended, it still is very much local black and
colored South African college students—most of the international students
attend the University of Cape Town. We
will also be able to meet Desmond Tutu as a house and talk with him due to all
the work she has done with him. Though
he is on a ‘semester at sea’ boat right now, he will be coming back to Cape
Town at the end of March so we will be meeting him soon enough!

Though I could ramble on about this woman for pages and
pages, I won’t keep you much longer. The
above information is just some of the things she has done, excluding her polio,
work for the Clinton administration, her book (Disposable People? The Plight of Refugees),
being a University professor, and an Emmy-winning producer—the things she didn’t
tell us. We looked up more about her
life and found that even her Wikipedia page barely does her justice.

The two things I will always remember from Judy are:

“You can get through any ups and downs in life as long
as you’re doing something you’re passionate about.”

“Human
beings should never be afraid of human beings—no matter their race or age. We are all human beings.”

I truly
believe I met a future saint on Friday.

Comparatively,
hiking Table Mountain was nothing!
Saturday, we had planned a sunset hike up Table Mountain because we
would then be able to take the cable cars down after sunset. We got about half way up and found out the
cable cars were no longer running. At
that point, I decided (being the wimp that I am..) I had heard enough about the danger of hiking
in the dark and wasn’t going to risk it.
A few of us hiked back down while it was still light and watched the
sunset at the bottom—still pretty gorgeous, I must say.

After quite
the full weekend, we just all wanted more adventure. Mzoli’s it was!! Mzoli’s is a huge meat shop in the township
of Gugulethu. Every Sunday they have a
huge braai (BBQ) open to the public.
Thank God X-Man (the second Marquette driver who helps Pearnel) was
willing to drive us and stay with us the entire time. We walked in to what looked like a tiny
butcher shop, smaller than Thuringer for those of you in Arlington. X-Man ordered all the meat for us and we were
brought into the back room. After
walking through a short, claustrophobic hallway, we were brought into another
small room with huge, fired-up grills. We
handed the pan of meat to the men at the grills and were off to find a seat
outside in a great, big tent—the party tent, if you will!! It was really cool to be able to interact
with people of South Africa and international students while still helping
Gugulethu financially.

Tonight
began our first ‘family dinner’ and ‘family meeting.’ Our delicious homemade lasagna, salad, and
garlic bread was made by the wonderful Jamie and Jack. The family meeting idea began in Lizzy’s
family and Steph decided she wanted to implement it in our house. We altered the Owen’s family itinerary a bit
and fit it to the KHouse needs. The
meeting was completely optional because it was just something we wanted to
try. Everyone in the house ended up
attending and squeezing in Rob and Andrew’s bedroom. We opened with a prayer and focused the
majority of our time on ‘pits and peaks’-highs and lows, if you will. We also used a cross as a talking piece, so
only the person with the cross in their hand was able to talk. This made sure that everyone was heard and
everyone got a chance to speak. When
living in a house with 22 people, I have observed that most of the things
shared are happy ones. We tend to always
be laughing and sharing things about South Africa that we have
experienced. This is such an amazing
quality, but there are times when tears are necessary and things need to be let
out. It wasn’t until this meeting that
we were able to share our low points, even if they had to do with home. When everyone had a chance to talk, we ended
with another prayer. This time was very
much needed and will continue to be shared every Sunday night.

Thank you so
much for all the thoughts and prayers from home. This experience wouldn’t be the same without
them. I continually feel God’s presence
in KHouse and in my own life.